


Savour

by bluehasnoclues



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: M/M, Master of Death Harry Potter, Time Travel, Torture, but he doesn't know it, mostly implied but it gets icky
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 22:23:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,562
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15229230
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bluehasnoclues/pseuds/bluehasnoclues
Summary: The world is dead. Harry doesn’t mean to go back in time, but he certainly isn’t complaining — until he’s taken prisoner by the Dark Lord. Well, he isn’t complaining that much then, either.





	Savour

**Author's Note:**

> I stole the first sentence (sort of) from another fic, but the rest is completely mine — besides the characters, obviously.

Sometimes he forgot his name.

It had happened before, when he was too young to understand. He was _boy_ , he was _freak_ , and on happier occasions, he was simply _you_.

He wished he could go back to that time, when everything was easier. Names no longer had significance, because now, names meant _belonging_ , and there was no place for comfort in this desolate world.

Names meant that someone cared, so no one told gave theirs, because marking the graves of the fallen created yet another gaping hole in their souls.

It was a word you whispered to yourself in the darkest night, when no one could hear but the deadly sky above and the ruined earth below, when living was not necessarily important and there was no reason to stay but no reason to go, when being alone had sunk into your core and drenched your bones with that heavy, tired, ghostly feeling.

And that night, he allowed himself to part his dried and crusted lips and croak, in an awful, rusted voice, what he had denied himself so long:

 _I am Harry Potter_.

.

He woke in a beige prison.

Of course, he didn’t realize. He thought he was dead. After all, his body didn’t hurt near as much as usual, and he was laying on something soft, and the cold was gone, and the stench of death was no longer ever-present in the air.

Death was very kind, he thought, and resolved to stay dead.

Slowly, noise filtered in, and he opened his crusted-over eyes without concept of complaint. His right leg ached; odd, he found, because he could tell one ache over the others. His ribs protested as he took in a breath, but it was only on the right side, and none of them were even broken.

Yes, death was incredibly kind. A smile twitched at the corner of his mouth.

With his second breath, one particular scent stood out; _food_. As a rare commodity, cooked food was nigh impossible to come by, so he breathed in again and again in an effort to forever preserve the smell.

He looked around him. Yes, he was most certainly dead, because he was in a room. A nice room, too, a clean room, a _big_ room. With a _bed_.

He was still on the floor, but the _room_ had a _bed_.

Then, as if God had heard his musings from the night before, a deep voice called loudly. “ _Boy!_ ”

A voice?

He didn’t know what he did to deserve this, but if the muggle God decided he was to be in heaven, who was he to complain?

.

He struggled his way down the familiar stairs in an unfamiliar body. There they were; his first family. He did not think of them at the time, only as the horrible people they were, but now he knew true horror.

He was directed with a sneer — it might as well have been a smile — to a stale piece of bread — bread! — and a glass of lukewarm water — _they had clean water_ — and, even as Vernon Dursley looked upon him with him with disgust, all he could feel was an ever-consuming gratitude.

“Thank you,” he said, disregarding their strange looks. He devoured the bread despite futile attempts to make it last and it filled his stomach in a way that, even though it wasn’t quite enough to satisfy his hunger, worked well to satisfy his mind.

The air was clean, and he let himself bask in the moment before gulping down the water.

_Water._

A knock sounded on the door, bringing him out of his thoughts — who could it be, he wondered, visiting them in heaven? Cued by a harsh look from Vernon, he moved to see who it was, and a doubt began in his mind that maybe this wasn’t heaven after all.

He was pulled outside with a loud cackle and a whispered, “ _Found you._ ”

Bellatrix Black looked on him with a smug gleam in her eyes, and they disappeared with an all-too-familiar _crack_.

.

He hadn’t Apparated in years. The sick twisting in his stomach remained the same as in his memory and he stumbled away, more to regain his balance than anything.

Bellatrix took his arm again and dragged him through the house — Manor? It looked oddly familiar — into a dimly-lit room. He wasn’t surprised at who was already there, lounging gracefully and sipping what looked to be Firewhisky.

The Dark Lord had finally come for him.

Well, he had come to the Dark Lord.

The snake-like creature smiled nastily, though he was distinctly less snake-like than he remembered. “Bellatrix. I see what you have brought me.”

“Yes, milord,” She said, giving him only a sideways glance in favor of bowing her head toward the Lord.

“Well, then,” the Dark Lord said, and his head swam, knowing that he was most definitely _no longer_ in heaven. “Have some fun.”

Bellatrix _squealed_ , then spun towards him with a sort of childness happiness. “Harry, Harry, Harry,” She crooned, reaching out to caress his cheek. He let her. He was too weak to run, too weak to fight, and it would do best to conserve his energy for whatever came next.

Her words, however, stopped that idea in its tracks.

“The thing about the Cruciatus is —” She said, coming closer as if to inspect him, “it’s not only the caster’s intent that plays into the potency of the spell. It also takes into account the brain and _its_ concept of pain. The more you’ve been through, the higher your tolerance…” Bellatrix smiled, her teeth gleaming in the dark room. “The more it hurts.”

He caught the Dark Lord’s eye, holding onto that red gaze as if it was his only lifeline. He found himself tensing in anticipation, but quickly reminded himself that no, drawing up only hurts more, it's better to be relaxed and breathe into it —

That was useless, he managed to think, as his thoughts quickly dissolved into one long, neverending scream.

It hit his every nerve, tearing them apart faster than he could pull them together again. His veins threatened tear out of his body and his bones strained to hold strong under the sensation of being broken, over and over, again and again. He was back in that place where one ache merge with all the others, when his entire body and being screamed with pain. His voice, too — he could hear his own agonized cries forcing their way through his ruined throat. He didn't bother to hold them in. He didn't think he could.

An artery popped.

He can feel his skin bloom with bruises. His screams were dying out as his throat given to the torture, too raw to do any more than take shallow, shattered breaths. Darkness threatened his vision, but the pain wouldn't let him sleep.

“Bellatrix,” he heard a soft voice say. The witch sighed, sounding disappointed.

“I’ve never seen _this_ ,” she replied. The disappointment in her voice was tempered with excitement. “Taking a physical form.”

A moment of silence, and the pain stopped.

He shook, tremors racing through his body. He still could barely breathe. The darkness was still there, but his mind wouldn't let him go, still wrecked with phantom pain and somehow sensing the danger, holding onto consciousness with his stubbornness that would most likely be the death of him.

Footsteps drew closer.

He was plunged into shadow as someone stood over him. Two someones, his brain provided, keeping track of his surroundings in a way that made it so he did not have to think.

He still couldn't breathe.

The Dark Lord, he assumed, was the one who knelt over him and pressed a hand into his chest. He bucked — not necessarily in an effort to get away, but because his body couldn't stop shaking and even the small pressure hurt.

Even his clothes felt like they were ripping his skin off.

As he shook, the hand pressed harder. His lungs were going to cave, he realized, but he couldn't bring himself to care, it was all too much —

Air flooded lungs, and _he could breathe_.

The hand pressed harder, the other one joining but to cradle his head. The air continued to cycle, in and out, as the tremors slowly became small twitches and pain almost allowed him to think.

“Set his arm,” The Dark Lord murmured to Bellatrix, and his arm exploded.

But a moment later the sharp burning decreased.

As soon as he could breathe on his own he felt the Dark Lord’s hands shift and his veins begin to knit themselves back together. His arteries closed, his bruises slowly faded.

He could feel it all and it felt like a blessing.

“Harry Potter,” The Dark Lord said, as his body gradually relaxed. The Dark Lord sounded almost... angry? No, that couldn't be right.

“Yes, milord,” Bellatrix breathed. “Such a fascinating boy.”

“Potter,” the Lord repeated, just as softly as before. “Just what have they done to you?

“You,” he managed to say despite his silently-screaming throat. The Dark Lord shushed him, but he continued, determined to say the words that head enveloped his very being.

Pleasure was flashing through him, because he could breathe, and he was only trembling now, and his body was now only part in agony.

“Thank you,” Harry Potter said, then promptly passed out.

 


End file.
